I have been a member of the Union University and Schools Club since 1979. Many of its members have had a distinguished and notable service to our country. As Remembrance Day approaches here is a small vignette of some fallen members. Lest we Forget

Armistice Day also serves as a poignant reminder that the first two Australians killed in action in the First World War had a close association with the Club. The first Australian serving in an Australian military unit to lose his life was Dr Brian Colden Antill Pockley, but Lieutenant William Malcolm Chisholm, an Australian serving in a British regiment, died some two weeks earlier.

Dr Pockley was educated at Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore) before studying medicine at Sydney University where he was resident at St Paul’s College. After graduating, he became a member of the University Club in 1913. His father, Francis Antill Pockley, and other members of the Pockley family were members of the Union Club. Dr Pockley was also a member of the Sydney University Scouts (later to become the Sydney University Regiment), and immediately after war broke out on 28th July 1914, he and other members of the Scouts enlisted in the Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force, a volunteer force of some two thousand men hastily assembled to seize German colonies and radio stations in the Pacific. More than half of these volunteers were members of the University Club.

A unit from the Expeditionary Force landed at Rabaul in German New Guinea on 11th September 1914 and immediately encountered German resistance. Having attended to a wounded sailor, Dr Pockley selflessly gave his Red Cross brassard to another sailor who had been detailed off to carry the wounded sailor back to the hospital station at the rear. This was in the hope that the brassard would give the two sailors safe passage. Dr Pockley was then called upon to attend to a wounded German soldier, but moving forward to the soldier without his Red Cross brassard to identify him as a medical officer, he was fired on by the Germans. He died of his wounds that afternoon. His name appears on the Honour Board at Shore’s Northbridge Memorial Playing Fields.

Lieutenant Chisholm was born in Australia. In fact, his family had been prominent in New South Wales since 1790 when a Chisholm arrived with the New South Wales Corps. Lieutenant Chisholm was the elder son of Dr William Chisholm of Macquarie Street who had hopes that his son would follow him into the medical profession. However, the son’s ambition was to be a soldier and, after finishing his education at Sydney Grammar School in 1910, he was accepted into the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England (RMC Duntroon was not founded until 1911). He passed out from Sandhurst in 1914 and was granted a commission in the East Lancashire Regiment which was immediately sent to the Western Front. He was killed in action at Mons on 27th August 1914, only one day after his regiment had arrived. His name appears on Sydney Grammar School’s First World War Honour Board.

Lieutenant Chisholm’s father was a member of the Union Club, as were many previous Chisholms. Roy Goddard’s history of the Union Club published in 1957 shows that since 1859 eight members of the Chisholm family had been members of the Club. No doubt if he had been able to return to Australia after the war, Lieutenant Chisholm may also have become a member.